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I am my best productivity tool

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A healthy person has a thousand wishes. A sick one has only one.

Back in 2016, I got sick. I still went to work every day. Luckily nothing tragic, but enough to impact my quality of life and daily habits for 6 months. I had just turned 40 and maybe it was a mid-life crisis in disguise (I didn't buy a motorbike or jump off a cliff with a parachute to compensate).

Eventually, I improved, worked on myself, and changed my habits. This experience made me realize how important health and well-being. Note that I am not obsessed with happiness (but that is a topic for another article).

Being healthy (and feeling healthy) is often taken for granted. It's when we are not well that we realize how challenging it is. We are also unaware of what's happening in others' lives as not everything is visible…far from it.

As a consequence, I changed not only my perspective but also my way of living. I made a conscious set of choices and changed some of my habits. Because…

I am my best productivity tool.

At that time, I realized that I was my most important productivity tool. Productivity isn’t only about output. To me, it has a holistic component: it is about having a productive life that enables me to meaningfully participate in society and impact others.

Yet we are submerged and swimming in a sea of productivity tools. Organisations and individuals constantly look for productivity hacks and tools of all sort.

However they become irrelevant if I am not looking after myself. How I sleep, eat, exercise, relate to others, and find purpose in my life are all elements that make me more or less productive.

Choices are the reflection of my priorities.

Why are so many people ready to spend a substantial amount of money on the latest smartphone but hesitate, for instance, to invest in a good mattress? Why is it so easy to spend several hours texting or playing online games but difficult to exercise an hour a day?

Simply put, my choices inform me about my priorities. And once those choices are made, I build a narrative and behaviors that strengthens those (bad/good) habits. And there is no judgement here. Change is very difficult. If change is easy, then I would argue that it is just more of the same.

So where can one start to change and become more productive?

Start now - Pick one - Stick to one.

The best time to start is now.

But we all know how difficult it is to engage in new habits. We start full of courage, energy and set the bar high. Yet we often fall short of our ambitions.

What I have learned is that forming new habits is very difficult. Nothing new under the sun, right? I failed but have also been successful. So what helped me?

  1. Less is more - choose one and stick to it.

  2. Choose what matters to you: don't go with what others want. Go with what matters to you.

  3. Focus on repeating before amplifying. More often, less time.

  4. Accept deviations: when deviating, seek to understand, don't blame yourself, and get back on track.

  5. Support system: who around you can help you to stay on track?

  6. Mental contrasting: my latest addition that I discovered in Susan Davis’ book*. Imagine what obstacles might show up on the way improves your ability to follow through.

James Clear's Atomic Habits offers excellent advice and actionable tactics to make a new habit stick. Learn more about it in this podcast, buy the book. Or, if you can’t wait, read this article.

5 questions to get you started now

For this article, I want to focus on what we can influence as individuals.

So here are 5 questions I’d like to share you with as we get to the end of that article:

  1. What one habit would you like to change, stop, or start?

  2. What will this give you that you don't have now?

  3. What's the next thing you will do tonight or tomorrow to get started?

  4. How will you hold yourself accountable?

  5. What excuse(s) might you find to keep the status quo?

Food for thought - some references

You might already have your references. Nonetheless, here are a few references I have been reading about or listening to. Take it for what it is: inspiration, triggers for action. Not dogmatism.